Riaz Haq writes this data-driven blog to provide information, express his opinions and make comments on many topics. Subjects include personal activities, education, South Asia, South Asian community, regional and international affairs and US politics to financial markets. For investors interested in South Asia, Riaz has another blog called South Asia Investor at http://southasiainvestor.blogspot.com and a YouTube video channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkrIDyFbC9N9evXYb9cA_gQ

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Hindutva Terror to Spark India-Pakistan War?

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has warned in New Delhi today that Al-Qaeda is trying to destabilize the whole of South Asia hoping to provoke a deadly war between India and Pakistan, according to the BBC. In addition to Al-Qaeda, he has pointed the finger at the Taliban in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, and the Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba as groups seeking to spark conflict between India and Pakistan, or to provoke instability in Pakistan.

Mr. Gates is only partially correct. Conspicuously absent from his list of the region's "bad guys" are the Hindutva terrorist outfits who are implicated in a series of bombings designed to fan the flames of hatred between Hindus and Muslims and then blame Pakistan for their handiwork. As India's minister P. Chidambram put it recently, "The tactics of the jihadis have been copied by militants belonging to other groups too, not excluding militants professing the Hindu faith."

In a new book titled "Who Killed Karkare?"(published by Pharos Media), the author and former Maharashtra police chief S.M. Mushrif says a nationwide network of Hindutva terrorists that has its tentacles spread up to Nepal and Israel is out to destroy India's secularism and to reshape it into a theocratic state like Afghanistan under the Taliban.Mushrif has constructed an alarming picture out of former Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare’s indictment of alleged Hindutva terrorists like Lt. Col. Purohit, Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur and others. It showed a major nationwide conspiracy with international support to destabilize the secular democratic Indian state to be replaced by a Hindutva state run according to a new Constitution. For that the conspirators were prepared for a massive bloodbath, using bomb attacks on religious places to trigger an anti-Muslim holocaust.These Hindutva terror groups, and their affiliates, have carried out a number of bomb blasts across India in the last few years, and tried to pin the blame on Indian Muslims or the Pakistan's intelligence service ISI. Mushrif describes nearly a dozen blasts conducted by Hindutva terror groups of different stripes. He argues that a section of India’s intelligence services, a small group in the armed forces and parts of different state police forces have been compromised and infiltrated by these elements, a development that bodes ill for the future of the country, and the region. Some of the blasts, such as the bombing of Samjhota Express, had been falsely blamed on Pakistan's ISI to try and heighten tensions in South Asia. The circumstances around the assassination of Mumbai anti-terror squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karakare, who was pursuing some the major Hindutva figures involved in the bombing campaigns in India, have not been investigated. Demands by Karakare's wife for independent investigation and transparency have been ignored.

Mushrif believes that it is not Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh or Rahul Gandhi who actually run India on a day-to-day basis. Rather, it is a "power establishment" that is in charge of India, and it does not want to expose the Hindutva terrorists. One example is the blasts in Samjhauta Express, which the IB said was carried out by Pakistan’s ISI. Mushrif quotes a report in The Times of India that said, “the Center had blamed the ISI on the basis of the IB’s findings.” However, during a narco-analysis test under Karkare, Lt. Col. Purohit had admitted having supplied the RDX used in the blast. The IB, which draws its power from its proximity to the Prime Minister (its director briefs the PM every morning for half an hour), did not want Karkare’s investigation that blew the cover off the IB’s shenanigans, to continue.

In a recent article titled "Procrastinating on Hindutva Terror", Subash Gatade describes a number of bomb blasts carried out by Hindutva groups in India, and talks about how the investigators have been dragging their feet on such incidents where the perpetrators attempted to frame innocent Muslims. Among others, the author describes Goa and Malegaon blasts which were blamed on Muslim youths. Here is what it says:

In a writeup in Indian Express (8 Nov, 2009)"Goa Bombers Tried To Leave Muslim Imprint" the reporter even quotes another police officer on the condition of anonymity " The material was enough to spark communal trouble in Margao and extremist elements from outside would have found it easy to aggravate it." A close look at the plan to 'leave Muslim imprint' had echoes of earlier attempts by Hindutva terrorists of different hues to spark communal tension. The Malegaon bomb blast in 2008 which saw the exposure of the wide Hindutva terrorist network - thanks to the efforts of a committed officer like Hemant Karkare - had also seen similar actions by the fanatics. In fact the members of Abhinav Bharat had parked their explosive laden motorcycle below the defunct office of the SIMI in Bhikhu Chowk, Malegaon. The Nanded bomb blast in 2006 had also seen fake beards and dresses normally worn by Muslims at the house of the terrorists who had died in the bomb blasts.

Another Indian writer, Yoginder Sikand, has been following the story of Muslims framed by India's police and intelligence agencies in various incidents of violence. Here is what he wrote:

For several months now, almost no week passes without the media reporting about 'dreaded Muslim fundamentalists' being picked up by the police and allegedly confessing to being involved in bomb blasts or plots to engineer violence across India. It is not my argument that all of these reports are cooked-up and dished-out propaganda. Some of these stories must be true, and those behind such acts must be caught and punished. But, the fact remains, many of these stories circulating in the media are wholly fabricated, and these are being manufactured and highlighted for a particular motive: to fuel anti-Muslim passions and, thereby, justify various forms of discrimination and oppression—even murder—of hapless Muslim citizens who, far from having anything to do with terrorism, are victims of terror—of agencies of the state, especially the police and Hindutva terror outfits.

Earlier this month, Indian Occupied Kashmir's People's Democratic Party leader Mehbooba Mufti alleged that the recent Srinagar hotel attack was an attempt by "some government agency" to sabotage the efforts to withdraw troops from the state. “Maybe some militant groups don’t want the troop withdrawal, maybe somebody in the agencies don’t want the troop withdrawal. So I think for their interests, they become one at this point of time. But I would say that the withdrawal of troops is the best compliment that you can pay to the people of Jammu and Kashmir, who have voted in huge numbers,” she added.

As India constantly highlights the terror of green variety, it must not ignore its own homegrown terror dressed in saffron. The terror of either hue has the potential to spark a deadly conflict in South Asia that can easily spin out of control, and completely devastate the region.

47 comments:

Pak_Zindabad
said...

You hit nail on its head!It is plain ridiculous that US is fighting "war on terror" against 100 or so "Al-Qaeda" fighters(by their own admission) with 100,000 troops, missiles and aircraft in Arab & Muslim countries. It is courageous of you to bring the facts to light. Mumbai attacks were staged by US-Zionist-Hindu terrorists to defame Pakistan. How else could they record conversation between attacking terrorists and their handlers at the time of attack. Remember those attackers were wearing saffron strings around their hand,clean shaven(& possibly uncircumcised) and honest police officers (though infidels & idol worshipers who deserved to die) were killed by Indian intelligence which was exposed in the new book.There is also huge gaps in evidence that WTC attacks and London Bus Bombings, Madrid etc were staged to create hysteria against fastest growing religion.Attacks on Pak Army by Mesud tribes are well deserved since Pak Army betrayed Taliban for a few billion dollars. TTP has promised that as soon as Pak Army stops operation against innocent civilians of Mehsud tribes, they will stop the attacks. Pakistan must demand a UN enquiry into Mumbai attacks to expose Indian designs with investigators from Muslim nations. This author Mushrif must also be invited to UN and OIC to expose Indian deception and hypocrisy before the whole world.

I must say u have a great level of imagination. Hindutva extremist are pygmies before the islamic extremist. Probably usa is confident of handling that is the reason that they did not bother to mention.

Just a small correction: it's col. "Prohit"; this is how Zaid Hamid pronounces it and he is always correct.

Also, it's disappointing that you forgot to mention the clandestine army that Col. Prohit is setting up in Israel along with many RSS and Zionist guys to overthrow the Indian government and establish Hindu rashtra all over the subcontinent. Again, this was unearthed by two of Pakistan's finest journalists, Ahmad Quereshi and Zaid Hamid, who confronted a red-faced bhindian who had no answer to this. That you forgot to mention these things suggests to me that you are an India/US sympathizer. May allah sic a thousand jinns on you!

"Mumbai attacks were staged by US-Zionist-Hindu terrorists to defame Pakistan"

If you are sure of this, why do you need a UN enquiry? In anycase. if UN enquiry find blame on Pakistan - Ban Ki Moon is a Mossad agent and a closet Hindu? All of them were probably hysterical and envious about remarkable tribal governance in Afpak and wanted to topple that.

Riaz is,I guess, the milder version of you. Look at the similarities. You say Mumbai attacks were done by You-Know-Who(Its too silly to even mention it). Riaz says almost the same thing. There are nut cases like you in India also like that guy Mushriff whom Riaz quotes all the time. Apart from the Pakistanis nobody seems to believe a word you or people like Riaz say. It'll be a very sad day even if International media even publishes your and Riaz's arguments.

P.S. If RAW is behind the attacks in Pakistan then RAW is damn better than ISI,isn't it?? The kind of mayhem that is undergoing in Pakistan is far far worse than what ISI did to us Indians.. :) Clarification: I dont believe RAW is behind anything. Hope people got the sarcasm and the intention of the argument.

P.P.S If India is behind the attacks in Pakistan then Pakistan doesn't have to worry about anything,does it.. It doesn't have any Talibanisation problem and every nook and corner of Pakistan there is a RAW agent trying to convince innocent Muslims to wage Jihad,get this, against their own people- Muslims and Pakistanis. Why are people from India so smart and Pakistanis so gullible??? Its a compliment really..

Here is an interesting Op Ed piece in the Hindu, hinting at the possibility of the involvement of India's "shadowy security establishment" behind the IPL bidding fiasco:

When the Angels who rule India say they favour dialogue and peace with Pakistan but then fear to tread, is it any surprise that fools would rush in to destroy that virtuous path? We will never know whether somebody from our shadowy security establishment whispered something dark and fanciful in the ears of the owners and managers of the Indian Premier League as they went in for the player auction last week and if so, for whom he was batting.

Certainly, the manner in which every Pakistani cricketer was boycotted despite the initial expression of interest by the teams smacks of considerations other than sports, business or common sense. Most of all, the decision betrays such a poor understanding of the geographies of market development, brand building and soft power that its net effect will be to undermine India’s interests in the widest possible sense.

My own view is that the boycott was not ordered or engineered by the Government of India or any of its agencies acting on instructions from the top. But that does not free our leadership from the vicarious responsibility of needlessly perpetuating a bilateral vacuum that has produced one of the most spectacular self-dismissals sub-continental cricket — and diplomacy — have ever seen.

In the face of a popular backlash across the border, the Ministry of External Affairs rightly noted that the government had nothing to do with the IPL selection. But instead of expressing regret over an outcome that it played no direct role in producing, the MEA statement threw a heap of salt on the wounded national pride of all Pakistanis. “Pakistan,” the Ministry smugly declared, “should introspect on the reasons which have put a strain on relations between India and Pakistan and adversely impacted on peace, stability and prosperity in the region.”

If anything, a little introspection on the Indian side may have been equally appropriate, since some senior Ministers — including P. Chidambaram — later went out of their way to say the exclusion of Pakistani cricketers was indeed unfortunate. Apart from reflecting badly on India, the insulting exclusion has allowed reactionary, extremist elements in Pakistan to seize the moral high ground. And it has pushed Pakistani public opinion and civil society further into the embrace of those who would like to perpetuate a climate of hostility with India and who have more than a soft spot for terrorism.

Here is a report with some shocking revelations in Malegaon bomb blast trial of Purohit and his cohorts:

In a shocking revelation, an army officer, one of the 452 witnesses in the September 29 Malegaon blast case, has revealed in his statement that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had a grand design to split India into smaller independent countries by 2015.

According the statement, the officer had attended one of the meetings held by the Malegaon blast accused on April 12, 2008 at the Ram temple in Bhopal. The officer from the Army Education Corps said that he was shocked by the proceedings.

He added that an ex-Raw personnel, who was present in the meeting, divulged these sinister plans of splitting the nation, based on a similar operation in the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics).

The witness added that the ex-Raw official also revealed that the CIA had managed to penetrate several departments in India. The officer cautioned the witness that the meeting was being observed by the Intelligence Bureau.

Sinister plans

The officer met Lt Col Shrikant Purohit in an official dinner at the Officers' Mess of AEC training college and centre in the second week of December 2007 at Deolali. He told Purohit about a plan to take premature retirement to develop his village, and establish an old age home.

On January 26, 2008, Purohit asked him to come to Faridabad and meet a few people for his project. There he was introduced to Sameer Kulkarni and the other accused in the Malegaon blast case. Then on April 12, 2008, Purohit called him for a meeting at Ram Mandir. He met all the Malegaon accused and another 20 people, along with the ex-Raw officer and the IB source.

The former RAW officer spoke about the USSR and Purohit spoke about his plans to bring Abhinav Bharat to the fore. Purohit also spoke about Hindu fundamentals and his contacts in Israel and Thailand.

In a presentation to Pakistani media, Gen Kayani reiterated his widely reported comments on the Pakistan Army’s view of the situation in Afghanistan and the way forward there.

History, unresolved issues, India’s military capability and its ‘Cold Start’ doctrine meant that Pakistan could not afford to let its guard down. Repeating a well-known formulation, Gen Kayani said: “We plan on adversaries’ capabilities, not intentions.”

The tough, matter-of-fact line on India was in stark contrast to that of Gen Kayani’s predecessor, Gen (retd) Musharraf, who tried hard to push for peace with India in his latter years in power.------------------------The general was particularly keen to highlight the threat posed by India’s ‘Cold Start’ doctrine. Turing the traditional theory of war on its head, ‘Cold Start’ would permit the Indian Army to attack before mobilising, increasing the possibility of a “sudden spiral escalation”, according to Gen Kayani.

The Pakistan Army’s concerns about ‘Cold Start’ are well known, but Gen Kayani went as far as to put a timeline on its implementation: two years for India to achieve partial implementation and five years for full.

If true, the strategic impact could be of the highest order: defence analysts have speculated that ‘Cold Start’ may lead the Pakistan Army to lower its nuclear threshold as a way of deterring any punitive strikes or rapid capture of territory by the Indian armed forces.

Yet, Gen Kayani was also keen to point out that he did not have a one-dimensional view of security. Despite the fact that India’s defence budget is “seven times” that of Pakistan’s “there has to be a balance between development and military spending,” the general said.

He also pleaded that “peace and stability in South Asia should not be made hostage to a single terrorist act of a non-state actor”, a reference to the November 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Refusing to talk to Pakistan would send a bad signal on two counts: one, the non-state actors would know that they have the power to nudge India and Pakistan towards war; and two, within India it would become clear that relations with Pakistan could be suspended indefinitely.

The comments on India, though, came only later in an extended Power Point Presentation that covered everything from the operations in Swat and South Waziristan to the “way forward” in Afghanistan. Gen Kayani seemed relatively pleased with the reaction his presentation received when first unveiled at a meeting of chiefs of defence staff of Nato and its allied countries in Brussels late last month.

Emphasising what he termed the “fundamentals”, he claimed that until the Afghan government improved its credibility and governance record and until the Afghan population began to change its perception that Isaf is not winning, the Afghan government would not be able to establish its writ and the local Taliban would not be “weaned off”.

But on Afghanistan, too, India featured in Gen Kayani’s comments. Rejecting India’s reported interest in training the Afghan National Army and the country’s police force, Gen Kayani argued that Pakistan had a more legitimate expectation to do so.

Taken together, Gen Kayani’s comments suggest that the possibility of a thaw in relations between India and Pakistan any time soon is low.

Both India and Pakistan appear to have firmly lapsed into the old pattern of highlighting the differences between them and the threats they face from each other, while nominally leaving the door open to an improvement in relations if one side addresses the other’s concerns.

Unlike the past, though, the stakes appear to be higher because of the uncertain future of Afghanistan and a ‘nuclear overhang’ that may be affected by ‘Cold Start’.

It seems that the Hindutva aligned Indian intelligence in Lucknow is stepping up its harassment of Indian Muslims. Here's a forwarded email from Dr. Mustafa Kamal, Chairman of All-India Muslim Forum and former deputy VC of Zanzibar University in Tanazania:

Keeping a proper surveillance and vigil over each of the persons is the prerogative of all the governments, and whithout it, the effective administration cannot be ensured. However, when only one group or community is targetted for this purpose, it definitely depicts some presuppositions and prejudices against it. The same is exactly true about Indian Muslims. On 3rd this month after sunset two L.I.U.( Local Intelligence Unit) persons came to me, saying that they want to collect my personal details and political activities. When I asked them the reason, they simply said that they have instructions to gather information about all the prominent Muslims of the city who are involved in Muslim politics.Anyhow, they evaded the reply when I asked them ' Is it about non-Muslims also'?. From my residence they proceeded to Mr. Manzoor Ahmed, a Retired IPS officer and former Vice Chancellor of Agra University who stays a little distant away from me for the same purpose.

There is Booming industry of Terrorism Experts and Security Research Institutes in India, according to CyberGandhi, an Indian blogger who wrote a post titled "A Zillion Reasons to Escape From India":

With the emergence of Hindutva fascist forces and their alliance with Neo cons and Zionists, India witnessed a sharp increase in the number of research institutes, media houses and lobbying groups. According to a study by Think Tanks & Civil Societies Program at the University of Pennsylvania, India has 422 think tanks, second only to the US, which has over 2,000 such institutions.

Out of 422 recognized Indian think tanks, around 63 are engaged in security research and foreign policy matters, which are heavily funded by global weapon industry. India’s Retired spies, Police officers, Military personals, Diplomats and Journalists are hired by such national security & foreign policy research institutes which gets enormous fund from global weapon industry. These dreaded institutions are in fact has a hidden agenda. Behind the veil, they work as the public relations arm of weapon industry. They create fake terror stories with the help of media and intelligence wing, manipulate explosions through criminals in areas of tribals, dalits or minorities in order to get public acceptance for weapon contracts.

By creating conflicts in this poor country, Brahmin spin masters get huge commission from the sale of weapons to government forces. To this corrupt bureaucrats, India’s ‘National Interest‘ simply means ‘their self Interest’. Their lobbying power bring more wealth to their families as lucrative jobs, citizenship of rich countries and educational opportunities abroad.

Mentionable that India is one of the world’s largest weapons importers. Between 2000 and 2007 India ranked world’s second largest arms importer accounting for 7.5 % of all major weapons transfers. It stood fourth among the largest military spender in terms of purchasing power in 2007 followed by US, China and Russia.

Over 1,130 companies in 98 countries manufacture arms, ammunitions and components. 90 % of Conventional arms exports in the world are from the permanent five members of the United Nations Security Council namely USA, UK, Russia, China & France. The countries of Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East hold 51 per cent of the world’s heavy weapons.

The Defence Offset Facilitation Agency estimating the expenditure on the sector at USD 100 billion for next five years. At least 38 court cases relating to arms agreements are still pending against bureaucrats and military officers. Hindu fascist forces currently enjoy upper hand in media, civil service, judiciary, defence and educational streams of Indian society. Sooner or later, 25,000 strong democratic institutions in India will be collapsed and the country will be transformed to a limited democracy under the rule of security regime like Turkey or Israel. Hindutva’s security centric nationalism never was capable of bringing peace and protection to the life of our ordinary citizens.

According to Global Peace Index, India currently ranked on bottom, (122 with 2.422 score). Interestingly, our favourite arms supplier, Israel is among the worst performer when it comes to peace ranking. (141). It reminds a simple fact that the peace cannot be attained by sophisticated security apparatus.

Further more, India topped on Asian Risk Prospects -2009, with the highest political and social risk, scoring 6.87, mainly because of internal and external instability (PERC)

Here's an excerpt of how the BBC is reporting the Ayodhya verdict by Allahabad High Court today:

In a majority verdict, judges gave control of the main disputed section, where a mosque was torn down in 1992, to Hindus.

Other parts of the site will be controlled by Muslims and a Hindu sect.

Allahabad High Court is trying to create a false appearance of Solomon's wisdom by ordering what is being advertised as "split-the-baby" verdict.

In reality, though, the court has wrongly sided with the violent Hindutva outfits in practice by giving the main site where Babri masjid stood to Hindus.

Let's hope and pray that this latest verdict does not lead to more innocent blood being shed because of an unwise and unjust court ruling favoring the Hindu provocateurs and perpetrators of the crime of demolishing Babri mosque in 1992 and subsequent massacres of Muslim minority.

...These sorts of errors bothered me far less than the constant highlighting of atrocities, often fictional ones, by Muslim rulers. The entry on Konark read, "The massive Sun Temple was constructed in mid-13th century, probably by Orissan king Narashimhadev I to celebrate his military victory over the Muslims. In use for maybe only three centuries, the first blow occurred in the late 16th century when marauding Mughals removed the copper over the cupola. This vandalism may have dislodged the loadstone leading to the partial collapse of the 40m-high sikhara." As a child, I'd heard the tale of a giant magnet holding the Sun Temple's girders in place. By the time I was in my late teens, I knew Indian temples were made of stone and used little metal. The idea of a lodestone atop the Sun Temple keeping the structure together, while making compasses on passing ships go haywire, was manifestly absurd. Not too absurd for Lonely Planet, though, which lays blame for this imaginary vandalism at the door of Mughals, whose only connection with Konark in the late 16th century was a laudatory passage about the structure composed by Abul Fazl in the Ain-i-Akbari.

Temples, even grand ones can collapse from natural causes, as evidenced by the recent fall of the 500 year old gopuram of the Srikalahasti temple.

In India, however, any damage to old Hindu religious structures is reflexively attributed to 'the Muslims'. That phrase itself is objectionable, in my view. Lonely Planet never clubs the British and Portuguese together as 'the Christians', so why place rulers from varied ethnic backgrounds and historical eras into a hold all category such as 'the Muslims'?

The Sun Temple isn't the only instance of Lonely Planet inventing acts of Muslim vandalism. The entry for Himachal's Brajeshwari Temple states, "Famous for its wealth, the temple was looted by a string of invaders, from Mahmud of Ghazni to Jehangir". Mahmud did, indeed, loot the Brajeshwari temple. But Jehangir was neither an invader, having been born and bred in India, nor a plunderer of holy sites. He loved that region of the country, and did much to improve it.

Mughals keep unjustly getting the wrong end of the stick throughout the book. The background to Amritsar and its Golden Temple reads, "The original site for the city was granted by the Mughal emperor Akbar, but another Mughal, Ahmad Shah Durani, sacked Amritsar in 1761 and destroyed the temple." Durrani was, of course, not a Mughal at all. But hey, these guys are all Muslims, right? Mughal, Turk, Afghan, big difference. That attitude is probably why Allaudin Khilji is wrongly labelled a Pathan: "Chittor's first defeat occurred in 1303 when Ala-ud-din Khilji, the Pathan king of Delhi, besieged the fort, apparently to capture the beautiful Padmini, wife of the rana's (king's) uncle, Bhim Singh." Actually, misidentifying a Turko-Afghan as a Pathan is a minor error. The big howler in the sentence is LP's propagation of the myth of Rani Padmini. Back in the early 14th century, Khilji was on a campaign in Rajputana, capturing one fort after another, and Chittor was on his list. He didn't need a special reason to besiege it. The great poet and mystic Amir Khusro, who chronicled Khilji's campaign, made no mention of any Padmini. The story was dreamt up much later to contrast the treachery and lasciviousness of the Muslim ruler against the bravery and chivalry of his Hindu Rajput antagonists. I feel like saying to the Rajputs, "Guys, Khilji won, you lost, get over it."

Here's a Guardian report indicating Indian govt's intent to arrest and prosecute Arundhati Roy for sedition for her remarks on Kashmir:

India's home ministry is reported to have told police in Delhi that a case of sedition may be registered against Roy and the Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani for remarks they made at the weekend.

Under section 124A of the Indian penal code, those convicted of sedition face punishment ranging from a fine to life imprisonment.

Roy, who won the Booker in 1997 for The God of Small Things, is a controversial figure in India for her championing of politically sensitive causes. She has divided opinion by speaking out in support of the Naxalite insurgency and for casting doubt on Pakistan's involvement in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

The 48-year-old author refused to backtrack. In an email interview with the Guardian, she said: "That the government is considering charging me with sedition me has to do with its panic about many voices, even in India, being raised against what is happening in Kashmir. This is a new development, and one that must be worrisome for the government."

"Threatening me with legal action is meant to frighten the civil rights groups and young journalists into keeping quiet. But I think it will have the opposite effect. I think the government is mature enough to understand that it's too late to put the lid on now," Roy said.

Earlier the author, who is currently in Srinagar, Kashmir, said in a statement: "I said what millions of people here say every day. I said what I, as well as other commentators, have written and said for years. Anybody who cares to read the transcripts of my speeches will see that they were fundamentally a call for justice.

"I spoke about justice for the people of Kashmir who live under one of the most brutal military occupations in the world; for Kashmiri Pandits who live out the tragedy of having been driven out of their homeland; for Dalit soldiers killed in Kashmir whose graves I visited on garbage heaps in their villages in Cuddalore; for the Indian poor who pay the price of this occupation in material ways and who are now learning to live in the terror of what is becoming a police state."

After describing her meetings with people caught up in the Kashmir violence, she said: "Some have accused me of giving 'hate speeches', of wanting India to break up. On the contrary, what I say comes from love and pride. It comes from not wanting people to be killed, raped, imprisoned or have their fingernails pulled out in order to force them to say they are Indians. It comes from wanting to live in a society that is striving to be a just one.

"Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds. Pity the nation that needs to jail those who ask for justice, while communal killers, mass murderers, corporate scamsters, looters, rapists, and those who prey on the poorest of the poor roam free."

India's justice minister, Moodbidri Veerappa Moily, described Roy's remarks as "most unfortunate". He said: "Yes, there is freedom of speech … it can't violate the patriotic sentiments of the people."

Others were less restrained. One person posted a comment on the Indian Express newspaper website calling for the novelist to be charged with treason and executed.

Roy said she was not aware of the calls for her death, but said the comments were part of a "reasonably healthy debate in the Indian press".

"The rightwing Hindu stormtroopers are furious and say some pretty extreme things," she told the Guardian.

Roy made her original remarks on Sunday in a seminar – entitled Whither Kashmir? Freedom or Enslavement, during which she accused India of becoming a colonial power. Geelani also spoke at the seminar.

Tehelka has accessed 37 audio tapes, two videos and several witness statements that cast further light on the Malegaon blasts case of 2008.....The tapes show that the conspiracy was not just restricted to the 12 who were arrested. They throw up names of those who were sympathisers and funders, as suggested by Hemant Karkare in his last ­interview to Tehelka on 25 November 2008, a day before his death. The people mentioned are majors, brigadiers, police chiefs and politicians. But after the filing of the chargesheet, there has been silence...

Damningly, Tehelka also has a copy of an important department communication to a top ats official officials in the beginning of the year, with information on Ramji Kalsangra, a key accused. Kalsangra is wanted not just in the Malegaon blasts case but also for the Ajmer dargah, Mecca Masjid (Hyderabad), Malegaon mosque and Samjhauta Express blasts. Kalsangra was the one who planted the bombs and rode the bike used in the blasts. He was declared absconding. However, the department communication accessed by Tehelka speaks of specific information about Kalsangra’s whereabouts — The tapes accessed by Tehelka also contain what amount to confessions of rioting. For instance, RP Singh, an ­endocrinologist at Apollo Hospital, tells Dayanand Pandey, “We burnt 25 Muslims at one go. Killing Muslims by day, practicing medicine at night: we have to do this. We have to spread terror. No more crying” (translated from Hindi).

Here's a Times of India report on more arrests linked to Hindutva terror:

NEW DELHI: The CBI on Friday claimed a major breakthrough in its probe against the Hindu terror web blamed for devastating attacks on Hyderabad's Mecca Masjid, the Sufi shrine at Ajmer and earlier at Malegaon, with the arrest of a senior Abhinav Bharat ideologue who was hiding in a Hardwar ashram under the guise of a Hindu seer.

The arrest of Swami Aseemanand (59), named by CBI as an accused in Mecca Masjid terror attacks, will help the agency join the dots between Ajmer, Mecca and Malegaon as investigators believe he scripted all three attacks.

The agency is also learnt to have confiscated several documents and has telephone phone tap transcripts that proved the role of Aseemanand and his fellow plotters from Abhinav Bharat.

The CBI termed the arrest as a major catch that could lead to two absconding accused in the case — Sunil Dangre and Ramchandra Kalsangra. There is a reward of Rs 10 lakh each for the two. Aseemanand, a botany graduate from Hoogly in West Bengal, has been variously known as Jatin Chatterjee and Naba Kumar Sarkar. CBI said that he was living under an assumed name and sleuths found a passport issued by RPO Kolkata, a ration card and an election card issued by Hardwar authorities from his possession.

CBI brought the fake seer to Delhi and produced him before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Ajay Pandey at the Tis Hazari court which allowed the plea of CBI to take him to a court in Hyderabad within 48 hours. He will be produced there on Sunday. CBI sources said they had informed officials of the National Investigative Agency and Rajasthan ATS for a joint interrogation as there several contradictions were likely to appear during his examination. His name also finds mentions in the chargesheet filed by Rajasthan ATS in Ajmer blasts cases.

He has been on the run after the arrest of Malegaon terror attack suspect Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur in 2008. The CBI and Maharashtra ATS had carried out searches in 2009-10 at various places in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat after receiving information about his presence.

India's Congress leader Digvijay Singh has compared Hindutva extrenists' hatred of Musims with that of Nazi's against jews. Here's a Times of India report:

NEW DELHI: Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh launched a sharp attack on the RSS and the BJP, likening their "hatred" towards Muslims to that of the Nazis towards the Jews and claiming that the "roots of terrorism" in India lie in BJP leader L K Advani's 1990 'rath yatra'.

He also sought to take the battle over the 2G spectrum allocation issue into the opposition camp by alleging that the radiowaves scam originated under the NDA rule when late Pramod Mahajan was the telecom minister.

Singh said it was under Mahajan's tenure that allocation of spectrum was made on the first-come-first-serve basis as against the prevailing auction of circles.

In a hard-hitting speech, he also demanded fast-tracking of probe against two chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh who allegedly own assets disproportionate to their known sources of income. Singh, the AICC general secretary incharge of party affairs in UP, did not take any names.

There are disproportionate assets cases against chief minister Mayawati of BSP and former chief minister and SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Hitting out at the RSS, Singh said "in the 1930s Hitler's Nazi party attacked the Jews... similarly the RSS ideology wants to capture power by targeting Muslims under the garb of furthering nationalism."

Singh, who was seconding the political resolution moved by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee at the 83rd Congress plenary here, singled out senior BJP leader L K Advani for "sowing the seeds of division" among the Hindus and Muslims by undertaking the controversial 'rath yatra' in 1990.

He said the "demolition of the Babri Masjid...is the darkest patch in the history of India. The roots of terrorism in India lie in BJP leader L K Advani's rath yatra".

Accusing the BJP of maintaining that all Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims, Singh said, "can we apply the same logic and say that all Hindus are not terrorists but all Hindu terrorists arrested in various blast cases are RSS activists."

The RSS has been "sowing the seeds of Muslim hatred" in the minds of the new generation through 'Shishu Mandir' schools and "this is the biggest danger for us", he claimed.

He claimed the RSS had made its activists enter the bureaucracy, police and even the army.

Singh said the rise of RSS-BJP "ideology of violence and hatred" posed the "biggest challenge" before the nation. The other big challenges were the Communists and regional political parties, he said.

He said the Congress needs to take steps to convert into trust the mistrust in the minds "of our Muslim brothers".

The Malegaon blast probe threw up 37 audiotapes in which ultra-Hindu groups plot terror attacks. These tapes expose a shocking nexus between Military Intelligence men and the outfits. Two years later, why is this still unexplored, asks RANA AYYUB

HATE IS one of the obvious and evident yields of the Hindutva worldview. But few had imagined it could spawn a terror network until investigations into the 2008 Malegaon blast led to a series of startling arrests that included Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and Lt Col Shrikant Purohit of Abhinav Bharat, an ultra-right Hindu group. Since then, the issue of ‘saffron terror’ has entered national discourse as a fractious and heated debate.

Last week, the issue erupted once again, triggering livid responses across the political spectrum. First, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh claimed that Maharashtra Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare — who had been investigating the Malegaon blast — had called him hours before he died on the fateful night of 26/11, saying he was being threatened by those opposed to his probes. Singh was speaking at the launch of a book by Aziz Burney, controversially titled 26/11 — A RSS Controversy? and both sections of his own party and the BJP were dismayed that his “irresponsible” remarks would play into Pakistan’s hands.

A few days later, in its ongoing exposé, WikiLeaks released a cable in which US Ambassador Timothy Roemer claimed that Rahul Gandhi had told him that ultra-Hindu terror was probably a greater threat to national security than Islamist terror. In all the furious exchanges that have followed, a crucial issue was overlooked. With the capture of Ajmal Kasab, it is undoubtedly an absurd stretch of imagination to believe 26/11 was engineered by ultra-Hindu groups, but the truth is the ‘saffron terror’ story is indeed far from being a closed book.

TEHELKA has found that, in the two years since the Malegaon blast, investigators have left many leads unexplored. Most alarmingly, they have failed to pin down eight Indian Army officers allegedly involved with the terror network. Why haven’t they been questioned by the army or sufficiently tracked? How far has the network penetrated sections of the army? To understand the full implication of this, it is important to recall the whole story.....

The notion that any Hindu militant Ideology can threaten a State than an Islamic one is ludicrous.

First, of all there is absolutely no justification of any violence against any living being, let alone Human, in the Religious Texts of Hindus. Heck, Hindus are so non violent that they prefer Vegetarianism and consequently India is the largest Vegetarian Country in the world. They consider killing Animals to be a Sin, forget killing Human Beings.

To gauge how strong Hindu Fundamentalism and Muslims Fundamentalism all you have to look at is the year of 2010.

While there wasn't a single incident of "Hindu" Terror, not even a riot, there were 2 blasts by Muslim Organizations, which call themselves Indian Mujahideen, in Pune and Varanasi(last month of November).

The score till now for 2010 is:Hindu Terror: 0Islamic Terror: 2.

Add this to the fact that India is a nation of 1 Billion Hindus and only 15% of the Population are Muslims you might say that there is absolutely no danger from these "Hindu" Terror groups.

Compare the same with Pakistan, where the roles are reversed. It is a nation full of Muslims and negligible Hindu population. It is a nation where discrimination is legalized starting from the Constitution and in its laws in the form of Blasphemy laws.

Acts of Terror in Pakistan for its entire existence:Hindu Terror- 0Islamic Terror- I honestly dont know the count but you get the picture if you are following world news, especially with respect to Pakistan.

So, Riaz, when the Islam-Inspired Texts are so overwhelmingly large and a million times more dangerous to the State, why do you feel to need to talk of an insignificant thing called "Hindu" Terror?

I hope you will publish my comment. I'd like to add that not to misinterpret the word Islamic Terror. I used it for the want of a better word. I do not want to suggest that Islam is the root cause of such kind of Terrorism.

Anoop: "While there wasn't a single incident of "Hindu" Terror, not even a riot, there were 2 blasts by Muslim Organizations, which call themselves Indian Mujahideen, in Pune and Varanasi(last month of November)."

And you believe this?

It's been the practice of Hindutva outfits and Indian police to frame Muslim organizations in such cases, as happened in Malegaon and Samjhota blasts.

"It's been the practice of Hindutva outfits and Indian police to frame Muslim organizations in such cases, as happened in Malegaon and Samjhota blasts. "

--> It is the same Indian Police and Indian State which exposed the "Hindu" Terror groups in the 2 cases. It is the Indian Police which is recently said the Ajmer Darga blasts was the handy work of Hindu groups and keeps on pushing the Investigation and giving reports as recently as today.

Pune blasts were held near a Hindu Ashram. So, you mean to tell me that Hindus want to kill Hindus? For what?

Varanasi is a Holy City for the Hindus and most injured were Hindus too, even the little girl who got killed was a Hindu.

In Malegoan, Ajmer and Samjhota Train blasts Muslims were killed and they were the targets. Why would a "Hindu" Terror group will target its own kind?

Ideologically also there is no justification. There is no such thing something equivalent to, say the word Kafir or an Infidel, in the Hindu Texts.

Muslims kill Muslims in Pakistan, because the groups there think others are lesser Muslims and they dont follow a certain code as defined by the Holy Quran(They are wrong or right is a completely different matter. The point is they use those Texts to justify their acts). The most central feature to Hindu Culture is the tolerance to all Living Creatures. No where in the world can you see a Temple dedicated to Rats or Snakes, one considered dirty and the other dangerous and wild, apart from in the Hindu Culture.

So, the whole thing is an exercise to satisfy your ego that Hindu Terror, like Islamic Terror in Pakistan, is a threat to the State and the very Idea of a Nation.

Sadly, Ideologically or otherwise, there is no chance in hell they can even be compared, let alone talk about how big a threat they are to their respective States.

India is NOT Pakistan. Hindus of India have nothing in common with the genetically related Muslim Brothers in Pakistan.

Anoop: "So, the whole thing is an exercise to satisfy your ego that Hindu Terror, like Islamic Terror in Pakistan, is a threat to the State and the very Idea of a Nation. "

Don't worry about satisfying my "ego"...pay atention to what your own crown prince Rahul Gandhi says about Hindutva terror as a bigger threat to India than Islamic militants.

As to the active connivance of Indian police and serving military personnel with Hindutva elements, pay attention to what people like SM Mushrif, Digvijay Singh, Yoginder Sikand, and others have to say about it.

Ask the survivors of pogroms like Gujarat 2002 and Orissa 2008 and they'll tell you how the Indian state police forces participated in mass killings of minorities.

"Don't worry about satisfying my "ego"...pay atention to what your own crown prince Rahul Gandhi says about Hindutva terror as a bigger threat to India than Islamic militants. "

--> So, the Congress people talk about how dangerous "Hindu" outfits(Read BJP, their cheif political rival) are. Surprise surprise.

The others you speak of have access to same kind of information that I do. Just because they say something doesn't mean they are right. SM.Musriff is an Ex-Policeman and if he feels he has a case he can always take it up with the Courts!!

You entertain his theories because it fits in with your notion that Hindu Terror is more dangerous than its Islamic Counterpart. The very fact that there were no Hindu Teror incidences in 2010 while there were plenty around the Globe of Islamic Terror incidences show how strong they are.

Here is what an US thinks about all this:"Post 26/11, a section of the Congress leadership was seen playing religious politics after one of its leaders, A R Antulay, implied that Hindutva forces may have been involved in the Mumbai terror attacks, according to a confidential memo by the then US ambassador to India, David Mulford, released by WikiLeaks. "

Obviously you have not highlighted this particular piece of news. Why? I am guessing because it doesn't fit in with your world view while you highlight that Rahul Gandhi said so and so, which fits perfectly well with it.

You will believe a neutral Country like the US over some ex-policeman, who finds no support in any section in India or outside(except ofcourse with Pakistanis), with his mind-boggling theories and statements?

"Ask the survivors of pogroms like Gujarat 2002 and Orissa 2008 and they'll tell you how the Indian state police forces participated in mass killings of minorities. "

--> India is nation of 1 Billion and 64 years of History and there are lapses of governance, there will be problems of all kind.

Compare this to Pakistan which has 1/7th the population but 7 times more frequency of such incidences occurring tells you that these incidences are an exception more than a rule in India.

Unlike in Pakistan discrimination is not legalized and we have a Secular and forward-looking Constitution and State Organs, compared to the bigoted, piece-of-junk-Constitution in Pakistan.

Heck, even to get a Pakistani passport you people have to discriminate against a community by signing this.

http://changinguppakistan.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/picture-2.png

I hope you dont have a passport but considering that you live in the US, it is a certainty that you do. So, you are guilty of personally insulting and discriminating against the Ahmadi Community.

India has all kinds of people. The important thing is Indian Constitution and its Institutions are Secular and Independent, which you cannot say about Pakistan.

Here is a report by The Independent on the unfolding story of Hindutva terrorists framing Muslims:

India is being forced to confront disturbing evidence that increasingly suggests a secret Hindu terror network may have been responsible for a wave of deadly attacks previously blamed on radical Muslims.

Information contained in a confession given in court by a Hindu holy man, suggests that he and several others linked to a right-wing Hindu organisation, planned and carried out attacks on a train travelling to Pakistan, a Sufi shrine and a mosque as well as two assaults on Malegaon, a town in southern India with a large Muslim population.

He claimed the attacks were launched in response to the actions of Muslim militants. "I told everybody that we should answer bombs with bombs," 59-year-old Swami Aseemanand, whose real name is Naba Kumar Sarkar, told a magistrate during a closed hearing in Delhi. "I suggested that 80 per cent of the people of Malegaon were Muslims and we should explode the first bomb in Malegaon itself. I also said that during partition, the Nizam of Hyderabad had wanted to go with Pakistan so Hyderabad was also a fair target. Then I said that since Hindus also throng [a Sufi shrine in] Ajmer we should also explode a bomb in Ajmer which would deter the Hindus from going there. I also suggested the Aligarh Muslim University as a target."

Police in India have suspected for some time that Hindus may have been responsible for the attacks carried out between 2006 and 2008, and in November of that year several arrests were made, including that of a serving military officer. But the confession of Swami Aseemanand, obtained by an Indian news magazine, is perhaps the most damning evidence yet that Hindu extremists were responsible. It also suggests those involved were senior members of a religious group that is the parent organisation of India's main opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

"The evidence is not conclusive but people have to take notice of this," said Bahukutumbi Raman, a former national security adviser and now a leading regional security analyst. "This could aggravate tensions between India's [Hindu and Muslim] communities. It will create problems."

Live discussion on IBN TV with a Muslim young man who had been incarcerated and tortured by the Andhra Police for the crime committed by Swami Aseemanand and his gang. How this young man's life has been turned upside down after false accusations and tortures.

Forensic evidence against Hindutva terror in India is mounting, according to Tehelka.com:

Not unexpectedly, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have alleged that Asimananda’s confession was made under coercion and thus rubbished the ongoing probe into Hindutva terror.

But the fact remains that Asimananda had made the confession in the closed chamber of a Delhi Metropolitan Magistrate with no one else being around and after spending two days in judicial custody contemplating possible repercussions. Again, what is being completely overlooked in this politically charged debate is a whole body of evidence — both material and circumstantial — which has been pieced together by different agencies over the past four years. Asimananda’s confession only confirms and adds to the existing pool of evidence.-----------

Curiously, the 6.53 volt battery found in the unexploded IED at Mecca Masjid was exactly the same as the batteries used to power the IEDs planted on the Samjhauta Express. Besides, the metallic shells used to stuff explosives in the Mecca Masjid bombs were similar to the iron shells which were part of the IEDs planted on the Samjhauta Express.

Similar shells were recovered from the house of a Hindu radical in Nanded, Maharashtra, in April 2006 when an RSS member and a Bajrang Dal activist had died while assembling a bomb. During the investigation it had emerged that the Hindu extremists had exploded similar shell bombs outside a few mosques in Jalna and Parbhani in 2003 and 2004.

Also in December 2002, more than half-a-dozen live pipe or shell bombs were recovered from an ijtema, a large religious gathering of Muslims, held near the Bhopal railway station.

The design of the shells used in bombs in Nanded, Jalna, Parbhani, Bhopal, Samjhauta and Mecca Masjid was similar and thus hinted towards the involvement of one terror group behind all these cases.

Interestingly, between 2005 and 2008, in the terror strikes targeted at Hindu neighbourhoods and temples — like the 2005 Delhi Diwali blasts, 2006 Sankatmochan Mandir blasts and 2007 Hyderabad twin blasts — the design of bombs was strikingly different from these bombs which were aimed at Muslims.

THE MECCA Masjid IED consisted of two pairs of metallic shells with their ends sealed, save for a small hole at one end to stuff the explosives. In the case of Mecca Masjid the explosive used was a lethal mix of high-intensity RDX and Trinitrotoluene (TNT) — both these explosives are only available with the army and paramilitary forces. Electrical detonators connected a 6.53 volt battery to the explosives through the hole at an end of each pair of the cast iron shells. The battery in turn was connected to an electrical circuit which in turn was connected to a Nokia 6030 cell phone with a SIM card. An alarm for 1.22 pm was set on the phone. Thus the cell phone served both as a timer and also the power source to trigger the circuit that would then result in the explosion of the IED. Each IED was neatly placed in a black iron box which in turn was placed in a rexine bag. -----------The Maharashtra ATS under its then chief Hemant Karkare carried out an excellent forensic investigation and retrieved the chassis number of the motorcycle used in the Malegaon blast. The motorcycle belonged to self-styled Hindu leader Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur. Her arrest led to a series of other arrests including serving Lt Col Purohit and a Hindu religious leader Dayanand Pandey.

After a slew of recent evidence of multiple acts of terror by the Sangh Parivar in India, the RSS is increasingly convinced that there is a move afoot to ban it, according to Bharat Bhushan.

RSS ideologue M G Vaidya wrote in a recent article: “ The present Congress, under the leadership of the new Mrs. Gandhi, needs a ban on the RSS — not to finish the RSS but to placate its Muslim vote bank.

Under these circumstances, a terrorist tag would be extremely damaging. Already graying, the marginalisation of the RSS would be accelerated. Funds from abroad will dry up, and domestic accounts of all associated organisations would be frozen. People would be wary of associating with it. Parents would advise their children to keep away from it. This is what the RSS is really worried about.

What is curious is that for preventing this predicament, its leaders do not blame their poisonous ideology which is essentially militaristic, demonises people of other religions and takes it upon itself to protect an exclusivist Indian nationalism. If the gray eminences of the RSS had any sense, they would distance themselves from the likes of Indresh Kumar. However, if the fire has already engulfed the outhouses and reached their door- step, they may find that there is no escape route left.

They will blame their favourite hate figures, the Nehru- Gandhi family for their predicament.

The RSS needs to dissolve itself. India needs no protection from self- styled militias. It has a state structure and judiciary capable of handling criminals and terrorists of various hues. It does not need religious vigilante groups to take revenge for jihadi terror or to save Hinduism, which has thrived for centuries without knobbly- kneed men in khaki shorts and black caps, bamboo staff in hand, taking part in an elaborate costume drama.

Here's a piece by Kapil Komireddi on Hindu terrorism published in the Guardian:

For far too long, the enduring response of the Indian establishment to Hindu nationalists has rarely surpassed mild scorn. Their organised violent eruptions across the country – slaughtering Muslims and Christians, destroying their places of worship, cutting open pregnant wombs – never seemed sufficient enough to the state to cast them as a meaningful threat to India's national security.

But the recently leaked confession of a repentant Hindu priest, Swami Aseemanand, confirms what India's security establishment should have uncovered: a series of blasts between 2006 and 2008 were carried out by Hindu outfits. The attacks targeted a predominantly Muslim town and places of Muslim worship elsewhere. Their victims were primarily Muslim. Yet the reflexive reaction of the police was to round up young Muslim men, torture them, extract confessions and declare the cases solved.

Pundits now conduct cautious enquiries on television. Does this revelation mean India is now under attack by "Hindu terrorism"? But to treat this as a new phenomenon is to overlook the bulky corpus of terrorist violence in India that has its roots in explicitly Hindu-political grievances. Why is the attack on a Jewish centre in Mumbai by Pakistani gunmen an example of "Islamic terrorism", but the slaughter of a thousand Muslims by sword-wielding Hindus in Gujarat in 2002 not proof of "Hindu terrorism", particularly when the purpose of the violence was to establish an Hindu state in India? How do we describe attacks on churches, the kidnappings of pastors, the burning to death of a missionary? What do we make of the war-cry pehle kasai, phir isai: first the butchers (Muslims), then the Christians? What has prompted this debate over "Hindu terrorism" is not Aseemanand's confession: it is the fact that, in carrying out their violence, his accomplices appropriated methods which, in popular imagination, have become associated exclusively with Islamic terrorism. Detonating bombs in crowded areas: isn't that what Muslims do?

It is when you look at the reactions to non-Hindu extremism that you absorb how strongly majoritarian assumptions inform the state and society's conduct in India. In 2002, the Indian government banned the radical Muslim group Simi (Students' Islamic Movement of India) citing the group's charter, which seeks to establish sharia rule in India, and the terror charges some of its members were facing. But the Hindu radical outfit RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or the National Volunteer Corps) remains open for business – even though it campaigns, very openly, for a Hindu state in India, and its members incite and perpetrate violence against Muslim and Christian minorities. Mahatma Gandhi's assassin was a member of the RSS, as are Aseemanand and his confreres. To get an idea of which of the two groups poses a more immediate threat to India, consider this: the government that banned Simi was headed by the BJP, the political wing of the RSS.

Indian newspaper The Hindu is publishing some wikileaks cables on India. Here are a few interesting ones:

1. The Hindu reveals that PM Singh isolated on wanting talks with Pakistan:

During the interaction, Mr. Narayanan, who had been described by the Embassy in a January 12, 2005 cable (25259: confidential) as a long-time Gandhi family loyalist “who is seen as part of the traditional ‘coterie' around Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi,” came through as a hardliner on Pakistan, never afraid to voice his differences with Prime Minister Singh.

In an August 11, 2009 cable (220281: confnoforn), sent a day after the meeting, Mr. Roemer noted that Mr. Narayanan, a former chief of the Intelligence Bureau who is now Governor of West Bengal, readily conceded that he had differences with Prime Minister Singh on Pakistan. The Prime Minister was a “great believer” in talks and negotiations with Islamabad, but Mr. Narayanan himself was “not a great believer in Pakistan.”

2. India was locked in a tussle with the United States over sharing information from the 2008 Mumbai attacks investigation with Pakistan, according to a chain of U.S. Embassy cables accessed by The Hindu through WikiLeaks.

During the India-Pakistan standoff in the aftermath of the 26/11 attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation helped the two sides share information of each other's investigations.

But India, suspicious of Pakistan's intentions, tried as long as it could to fend off U.S. pressure on information-sharing — before relenting, but with some conditions.

Unhappy about those conditions, the U.S. then sought to work around them through a “broad” reading of the assent.

On January 3, 2009 Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice instructed the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi to deliver a demarche (cable 185593: secret) that the U.S. was making available to it material on the Mumbai attacks provided by the Government of Pakistan.

Dr. Rice asked Ambassador David Mulford to tell New Delhi that “this information originated from top Pakistani officials in very sensitive positions and is passed to you with their permission. It represents a genuine willingness on their part to share sensitive and significant information with India.”

A new Wikileak revelation by The Hindu quotes BJP leader Arun Jaitly calling Hindutva as an Opportunistic issue for the party:

CHENNAI: Is Hindu nationalism the raison d'être of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), or just another vote-catching device? In a private conversation with American diplomats in May 2005, senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley articulated the view that Hindu nationalism was an opportunistic issue for the party.

Mr. Jaitley, who is now the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, met with Robert Blake, the Charge at the U.S. Embassy, on May 6, 2005, and provided him and the Political Counsel an insightful exposition on the politics of Hindutva. “Pressed on the question of Hindutva, Jaitley argued that Hindu nationalism ‘will always be a talking point' for the BJP. However, he characterized this as an opportunistic issue,” the Charge wrote in a cable dated May 10, 2005 ( 32279: confidential).

“In India's northeast, for instance, Hindutva plays well because of public anxiety about illegal migration of Muslims from Bangladesh. With the recent improvement of Indo-Pak relations, he added, Hindu nationalism is now less resonant in New Delhi, but that could change with another cross-border terrorist attack, for instance on the Indian Parliament,” Mr. Blake reported on the interaction with Mr. Jaitley.

On the basis of these remarks on Hindutva made by Mr. Jaitley, the diplomat concluded that his “credentials with the Sangh Parivar are weak, and he may not have what it takes to mobilize the BJP base.”--------On the issue of revocation of the visa of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Mr. Jaitley complained that he could not understand how the United States could take such an action against the party that began the transformation of U.S.-India relations.

When Mr. Blake explained the “rationale and legal basis” for the U.S. decision, “Jaitley agreed with the Charge's point that Modi was a polarizing personality, but argued that it would have been better for the US to let the Chief Minister visit the US, where he would have attracted a few demonstrators and then nothing more would be said.”

The Modi issue aside, the BJP leader was upbeat on U.S.-India relations, “emphasizing that ties with the U.S. were no longer a point of controversy in Indian politics.” Citing his own situation as typical, “Jaitley noted that he has several nieces and sisters living in the U.S., and ‘five homes to visit between DC and New York.'”

In private, Mr. Jaitley appeared more willing to give credit to his political rivals where due. “Putting on his hat as a former Commerce Minister, Jaitley confessed that the BJP's opposition to a Value Added Tax (VAT) at the state level was based on a narrow political calculus, and predicted that the BJP states would adopt the VAT soon in order to protect their revenue streams. He gave the Congress government generally positive marks for its handling of economic policy issues, but focused on the contradictions inherent in the UPA coalition.”

In response to the “Charge's pitch for opening of the Indian services sector,” Mr. Jaitley, a Senior Advocate, agreed that legal services should be opened to foreign competition, “noting that the performance of the Indian bar has begun to improve, even though the quality of judges suffers from a ‘Gandhian' mindset that leads to unreasonably low salaries.” On the retail sector, Mr. Jaitley “argued that foreign competition should not seriously hurt the mom and pop stores that form a BJP constituency.”

In a concluding comment, the Charge wrote: “Although visibly pained by the Modi visa revocation, Jaitley was gracious and open throughout. He clearly values his personal and commercial connections to the US (several US corporates are legal clients). As the competition for BJP leadership heats up, Jaitley will enjoy the advantages of a telegenic personality and strong ties to the New Delhi establishment.”

New Delhi: Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju on Sunday attributed simmering Hindu-Muslim tensions to a deliberate rewriting of history to project Muslim rulers as intolerant and bigoted, whereas ample evidence existed to show the reverse was true.

The judge also said that Indians were held together by a common Sanskrit-Urdu culture which guaranteed that India would always remain secular.

Justice Katju said the myth-making against Muslim rulers, which was a post-1857 British project, had been internalised in India over the years. Thus, Mahmud Ghazni's destruction of the Somnath temple was known but not the fact that Tipu Sultan gave an annual grant to 156 Hindu temples. The judge, who delivered the valedictory address at a conference held to mark the silver jubilee of the Institute of Objective Studies, buttressed his arguments with examples quoted from D.N. Pande's History in the Service of Imperialism.

Dr. Pande, who summarised his conclusions in a lecture to members of the Rajya Sabha in 1977, had said: “Thus under a definite policy the Indian history textbooks were so falsified and distorted as to give an impression that the medieval period of Indian history was full of atrocities committed by Muslim rulers on their Hindu subjects and the Hindus had to suffer terrible indignities under Islamic rule.”

Justice Katju said Dr. Pande came upon the truth about Tipu Sultan in 1928 while verifying a contention — made in a history textbook authored by Dr. Har Prashad Shastri, the then head of the Sanskrit Department in Calcutta University — that during Tipu's rule 3,000 Brahmins had committed suicide to escape conversion to Islam. The only authentication Dr. Shastri could provide was that the reference was contained in the Mysore Gazetteer. But the Gazetteer contained no such reference.

Further research by Dr. Pande showed not only that Tipu paid annual grants to 156 temples, but that he enjoyed cordial relations with the Shankaracharya of Sringeri Math to whom he had addressed at least 30 letters. Dr. Shastri's book, which was in use at the time in high schools across India, was later de-prescribed. But the unsubstantiated allegation continued to masquerade as a fact in history books written later.

Justice Katju said the secular-plural character of India was guaranteed both by the Indian Constitution and the unmatched diversity of the Indian population. The judge attributed the diversity to the fact of India being a land of old immigrants, dating back to 10,000 years (Justice Katju and fellow judge Gyan Sudha Misra first propounded this thesis in a judgment, excerpts from which were carried as an op-ed article in The Hindu edition dated January 12, 2011). The diversity, reflected in the wide range of religions, castes, languages and physical attributes found among the descendants, led the founding fathers to draft a Constitution with strong federal features. “Diversity is our asset and our guarantee for staying secular,” said Justice Katju.

Earlier, a resolution passed at the conference urged the government to forthwith set up an Equal Opportunity Commission as recommended by the Rajinder Sachar Committee.

The resolution said: “The conference resolves that inclusive growth is not possible without equal opportunities being given to all sections of society, particularly minorities and other marginalised communities.”

A great deal of new evidence concerning the 26 November 2008 terrorist attacks in Bombay has emerged over the past year. This includes the book Who Killed Karkare: The Real Face of Terrorism in India by S.M.Mushrif, a former police officer with a distinguished record, who uses news reports during and just after the attacks to question the official story; the book To the Last Bullet by Vinita Kamte (the widow of Ashok Kamte) and Vinita Deshmukh; revelations concerning Hemant Karkare's bullet-proof jacket and post-mortem report; the David Coleman Headley trial; and the trial of Ajmal Kasab, Fahim Ansari and Sabauddin Shaikh. I do not include the Ram Pradhan Commission report on police responses to the attack, for reasons I will explain. ------------It has been established that Headley was an agent of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, and his plea bargain leads us to conclude he was also a US intelligence agent: in other words, a spy. It is also known he was involved with the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and supplied information to them about targets attacked on 26/11. -----------This consistent pattern of framing Muslims even for attacks in which the overwhelming majority of victims were Muslims, as in the case of the Samjhauta Express train blasts in 2007, could not have been sustained without the participation of the IB and police. Investigations into the Nanded blasts in 2006 revealed that bombs made by the RSS and Bajrang Dal had earlier been set off at mosques in Parbhani (2003), Jalna (2004), and Purna (2004), and were about to be used in another terrorist attack in Aurangabad when they went off prematurely. But half-hearted prosecutions allowed members of the network to get away. Ironically, local protests at the way the case was being mishandled led to its being transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which further diluted the charges (Mushrif 153-67)! Initial investigations by the local police pointed to Hindutva groups as the perpetrators of the blasts at a Muslim festival in Malegaon in 2006 that killed over 30 and injured hundreds, yet again the police, the Maharashtra ATS (then headed by K.P.Raghuvanshi) who took over from the police, and the CBI who took over from the ATS charged Muslims against whom there was no evidence whatsoever (Khan 2010). It appeared that Hindutva terror groups could commit mass murder with impunity (Gatade 2008). ----------If extremists are allowed to infiltrate India's state institutions unchecked, its constitution and secular character would eventually be destroyed. Hemant Karkare and Shahid Azmi lost their lives while trying to save India from this dire fate. We must ensure that they did not die in vain.

It appears that the Norwegian white supremacist terrorist Breivik shared the thinking of Nazi-loving Hindu Nationalists like Golwalkar and his Sangh Parivar buddies. Here's an excerpt from a Express Tribune story:

"While Breivik’s rhetoric against Muslim immigration into Europe is not unusual, he cites many names that might be familiar to Pakistanis, including Allama Muhammad Iqbal and Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, as well as prominent human rights activist Hina Jilani and Dawn columnist Irfan Hussain.He seems to believe that Iqbal, in particular, was sympathetic to communism and views multiculturalism as a Marxist concept. He quotes Iqbal as saying “Islam equals communism plus Allah.”Breivik also claims that Pakistan is systematically annihilating all non-Muslim communities. He claimed that Hindu girls are being forced to convert to Islam in Sindh. In this context he even quotes Hina Jilani as saying: “Have you ever heard of an Indian Muslim girl being forced to embrace Hinduism? It’s Muslims winning by intimidation.”He goes on to describe the situation for Christians in Pakistan as being no better, citing Father Emmanuel Asi of the Theological Institute for Laity in Lahore as saying in 2007 that Pakistani Christians are frequently denied equal rights.Jamaat-e-Islami founder Abul Ala Maududi is also quoted in the manifesto, though in a manner that would imply that the stated objective of an Islamic state is to kill or subdue all non-Muslims around the world.Breivik seems to be a fan of Daily Times columnist Razi Azmi, whom he calls “one of the more sensible columnists of Pakistan”. He mentions one of Azmi’s pieces where the columnist asks whether it was possible to imagine a Muslim converting to Christianity or Hinduism or Buddhism in a Muslim country, using it to support his view of Islam as an intolerant religion.He also cites Dawn’s Irfan Hussain’s column criticising Hizb u-Tahrir’s vision of a caliphate.His ire against Pakistanis and Muslims seems to have at least partial origin in personal experience. He speaks at length about his childhood best friend, a Pakistani Muslim immigrant to Norway who, despite having lived several years in Europe still appeared to resent Norway and Norwegian society. “Not because he was jealous… but because it represented the exact opposite of Islamic ways,” Breivik conjectures.The inability of Muslim immigrants to assimilate into European society seems to bother him, which he blames on Muslim parents not allowing their children to adopt European ways. He also asks why Muslim girls are considered ‘off-limits’ to everyone, including Muslim boys, and why Muslim men view ethnic Norwegian women as ‘whores’.He also seems to believe that the Muslims in Europe who collect government benefits view it as a form of jizya, a medieval Islamic tax charged on non-Muslim minorities."

"2080: A European declaration of independence"lays out a road map for a future organisation, the Justiciar Knights, to wage a campaign that will graduate from acts of terrorism to a global war involving weapons of mass destruction — aimed at bringing down what Breivik calls the “cultural Marxist” order.

India figures in a remarkable 102 pages of the sprawling 1,518-page manifesto. Breivik's manifesto says his Justiciar Knights “support the Sanatana Dharma movements and Indian nationalists in general.” In section 3.158 of the manifesto, he explains that Hindu nationalists “are suffering from the same persecution by the Indian cultural Marxists as their European cousins.”“Appeasing Muslims”

The United Progressive Alliance government, he goes on, “relies on appeasing Muslims and, very sadly, proselytising Christian missionaries who illegally convert low caste Hindus with lies and fear, alongside Communists who want total destruction of the Hindu faith and culture.”

Even though Hindus who are living abroad “get an eagle's view of what's happening in India, Indian Hindu residents don't see it being in the scene.”

Breivik's manifesto applauds Hindu groups who “do not tolerate the current injustice and often riot and attack Muslims when things get out of control,” but says, “this behaviour is nonetheless counterproductive.”

“Instead of attacking the Muslims, they should target the category A and B traitors in India and consolidate military cells and actively seek the overthrow of the cultural Marxist government.”

“It is essential that the European and Indian resistance movements learn from each other and cooperate as much as possible,” he concludes. “Our goals are more or less identical.”Lists websites

Breivik lists the websites of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the National Volunteers' Organisation, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad as resources for further information.

The manifesto pledges military support “to the nationalists in the Indian civil war and in the deportation of all Muslims from India.” This is part of a larger campaign to “overthrow of all western European multiculturalist governments” and evict “U.S. military personnel on European soil.”---He uses the work of historians K.S. Lal and Shrinandan Vyas to point to the threat posed by Islam to Europe, saying their work has established that millions of Hindus were killed in a genocide during 1000-1525 AD. N.S. Rajaram, another historian, is quoted as saying India's “political class have been so debilitating that they continue to live in a state of constant fear.”

Breivik's manifesto envisages that this future organisation would hand out a “multi-cultural force medal,” which would be awarded for “military cooperation with nationalist Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish and/or atheist forces (non-European) on Hindu, Buddhist or Jewish territory. These efforts must be directed against Jihadi or cultural Marxist forces, personnel or interests.”---Even though Breivik's Knights would fight shoulder to shoulder with Hindu nationalists, his vision for their rights in a post-revolutionary Europe is limited. The manifesto envisages the creation of a “servant class,” made up of non-Muslim individuals from Bangladesh, Pakistan and India.

“During their stay,” the manifesto envisages, “they will work 12 hours a day for the duration of their contracts (6 or 12 months) and are then flown back to their homelands.” “These individuals,” it goes on, “will live in segregated communities in pre-defined areas of each major city.”

Here's an excerpt from another Hindu editorial by Praveen Swami on terror in Oslo:

In 2008, Hindutva leader B.L. Sharma ‘Prem' held a secret meeting with key members of a terrorist group responsible for a nationwide bombing campaign targeting Muslims. “It has been a year since I sent some three lakh letters, distributed 20,000 maps of Akhand Bharat but these Brahmins and Banias have not done anything and neither will they [do anything],” he is recorded to have said in documents obtained by prosecutors. “It is not that physical power is the only way to make a difference,” he concluded, “but to awaken people mentally, I believe that you have to set fire to society.”

Last week, Anders Behring Breivik, armed with assault weapons and an improvised explosive device fabricated from the chemicals he used to fertilize the farm that had made him a millionaire in his mid-20s, set out to put Norway on fire.

Even though a spatial universe separated the blonde, blue-eyed Mr. Breivik from the saffron-clad neo-Sikh Mr. Sharma, their ideas rested on much the same intellectual firmament.

In much media reportage, Mr. Breivik has been characterised as a deranged loner: a Muslim-hating Christian fanatic whose ideas and actions placed him outside of society. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mr. Breivik's mode of praxis was, in fact, entirely consistent with the periodic acts of mass violence European fascists have carried out since World War II. More important, Mr. Breivik's ideas, like those of Mr. Sharma, were firmly rooted in mainstream right-wing discourse. -----------For India, there are several important lessons. Like's Europe's mainstream right-wing parties, the BJP has condemned the terrorism of the right — but not the thought system which drives it. Its refusal to engage in serious introspection, or even to unequivocally condemn Hindutva violence, has been nothing short of disgraceful. Liberal parties, including the Congress, have been equally evasive in their critique of both Hindutva and Islamist terrorism.

Besieged as India is by multiple fundamentalisms, in the throes of a social crisis that runs far deeper than in Europe, with institutions far weaker, it must reflect carefully on Mr. Brevik's story — or run real risks to its survival.

Here's an Economist magazine story about Indian interference in Bangladeshi politics on the side of the Awami League:

NOT much noticed by outsiders, long-troubled ties between two neighbours sharing a long border have taken a substantial lurch for the better. Ever since 2008, when the Awami League, helped by bags of Indian cash and advice, triumphed in general elections in Bangladesh, relations with India have blossomed. To Indian delight, Bangladesh has cracked down on extremists with ties to Pakistan or India’s home-grown terrorist group, the Indian Mujahideen, as well as on vociferous Islamist (and anti-Indian) politicians in the country. India feels that bit safer.

Now the dynasts who rule each country are cementing political ties. On July 25th Sonia Gandhi (pictured, above) swept into Dhaka, the capital, for the first time. Sharing a sofa with Sheikh Hasina (left), the prime minister (and old family friend), the head of India’s ruling Congress Party heaped praise on her host, notably for helping the poor. A beaming Sheikh Hasina reciprocated with a golden gong, a post humous award for Mrs Gandhi’s mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi. In 1971 she sent India’s army to help Bangladeshis, led by Sheikh Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, throw off brutal Pakistani rule.

As a result, officials this week chirped that relations are now “very excellent”. They should get better yet. India’s prime minister, Manmohan Singh, will visit early in September to sign deals on sensitive matters like sharing rivers, sending electricity over the border, settling disputed patches of territory on the 4,095km (2,500-mile) frontier and stopping India’s trigger-happy border guards from murdering migrants and cow-smugglers. Mr Singh may also deal with the topic of trade which, smuggling aside, heavily favours India, to Bangladeshi ire.

Most important, however, is a deal on setting up a handful of transit routes across Bangladesh, to reach India’s remote, isolated north-eastern states. These are the “seven sisters” wedged up against the border with China.

On the face of it, the $10 billion project will develop poor areas cut off from India’s booming economy. The Asian Development Bank and others see Bangladeshi gains too, from better roads, ports, railways and much-needed trade. In Dhaka, the capital, the central-bank governor says broader integration with India could lift economic growth by a couple of percentage points, from nearly 7% already.

India has handed over half of a $1 billion soft loan for the project, and the money is being spent on new river-dredgers and rolling stock. Bangladesh’s rulers are mustard-keen. The country missed out on an earlier infrastructure bonanza involving a plan to pipe gas from Myanmar to India. China got the pipeline instead.

Yet the new transit project may be about more than just development. Some in Dhaka, including military types, suspect it is intended to create an Indian security corridor. It could open a way for army supplies to cross low-lying Bangladesh rather than going via dreadful mountain roads vulnerable to guerrilla attack. As a result, India could more easily put down insurgents in Nagaland and Manipur. The military types fear it might provoke reprisals by such groups in Bangladesh.

More striking, India’s army might try supplying its expanding divisions parked high on the border with China, in Arunachal Pradesh. China disputes India’s right to Arunachal territory, calling it South Tibet. Some Bangladeshis fret that if India tries to overcome its own logistical problems by, in effect, using Bangladesh as a huge military marshalling yard, reprisals from China would follow.

IS KARNATAKA the new Gujarat, the second “laboratory of Hindutva” for the BJP and the broader Sangh Parivar? As the BJP government in the state enters the final year of its first term in power — it had earlier ruled in alliance with the JD(S) — that disturbing question comes up again and again. Behind the morality and hypocrisy, the humbug and corruption that the BJP establishment in Bengaluru has been charged with is a harder, harsher truth: the scary distortion of an entire society.-------------Take a small example. On 22 January, there was uproar in Uppanangadi, a hamlet near Mangalore. Kalladka Prabhakar Bhatt, a senior RSS leader known for his proximity to Sadananda Gowda and his predecessor BS Yeddyurappa, was addressing a crowd and resorted to extreme and undignified imagery. “Lift the veils of Muslim women,” Bhatt told the throng, “and glimpse what they have to offer.” His listeners cheered; policemen listened too, but strolled casually, as if nothing were happening.

Soon after, the local minorities — a mix of Muslim and Catholic organisations — approached the police, which reluctantly filed an FIR against Bhatt. Yet it refused to arrest him, arguing there was no basis for taking him into custody. Rather, as if to compensate, the local police then filed an FIR against the president of the Muslim Central Committee, Mohammad Masood, under Section 153(a) of the Indian Penal Code — “Promoting communal enmity between classes” — as well as Section 505(2) — “Making statements that create or promote communal enmity”.-------------In 2009, Sitaram was arrested when a case was filed against him for defamation. Twenty-five policemen turned up and surrounded him. “It seemed like they had come to arrest a terrorist,” he exclaims. His fault was he had written about the exploits of a local Bajrang Dal leader.

Sitaram points to the newspapers stacked in his office. Picking up some of them at random, from the previous month’s pile, almost every day one finds mention of an attack on Muslims and Christians, on churches and mosques. Sitaram is distraught: “They go around shouting ‘Pehle qasaai, phir Isaai’ — First butchers (Muslims), then Christians.” According to official figures, a church has been attacked almost once every 10 days in the past three years. In some cases, the very presence of a Muslim boy with a Hindu girl has caused a riot.

The opposition to Hindu girl-Muslim boy romance is part of a peculiar phenomenon that the Sangh Parivar labels “love jihad”. This paranoia began in Kerala and alleges that Muslim men are being trained to woo and then indoctrinate Hindu girls, to win converts to Islam.

Bhatt is an exponent of theories of love jihad. In December 2011, the Hindu Nagarika Samiti held a massive protest meeting in Sullia, where Bhatt attacked the police for its supposed anti-Hindu sentiment and spoke of how love jihad, terrorism and cow slaughter were rampant in the state.

He was joined by others, notably Satyajit Suratkal, regional convener of the Hindu Jagran Vedike, who said: “Whenever the Muslims provoked us, we have given a suitable response. If they want more, then there might be a recurrence of earlier happenings. If the police join hands with traitors we will teach them a lesson too.”

90% of Indians are idiots, says Justice Katju according to India Times:

NEW DELHI: Ninety percent of Indians are “idiots” who can easily be misled by mischievous elements in the name of religion, Press Council of India (PCI) chairperson Justice Markandey Katju claimed today.

“I say ninety percent of Indians are idiots. You people don’t have brains in your heads….It is so easy to take you for a ride,” he said at a seminar here.

He said that a communal riot could be incited in Delhi for as meagre an amount as Rs 2000. He said that all somebody has to do is make a mischievous gesture of disrespect to a place of worship and people start fighting each other.

“You mad people will start fighting amongst yourself not realising that some agent provocateur is behind this,”he said.

Katju said that before 1857 there was no communalism in the country but the situation was different now. “Today 80 percent Hindus are communal and 80 percent Muslims are communal. This is the harsh truth, bitter truth that I am telling you. How is it that in 150 years you have gone backwards instead of moving forward because the English kept injecting poison,” Katju said.

“The policy that emanated from London after the mutiny in 1857 that there is only one way to control this country that is to make Hindus and Muslims fight each other,” he said.

He said that then there was a propaganda that Hindi was the language of Hindus and Urdu of Muslims. “Our ancestors also studied Urdu, but it is so easy to fool you. You are idiots so how difficult is it to make an idiot of you,” Katju said.

Katju said that he was saying these harsh things to make Indians, whom he loved to understand the whole game and not remain fools.

Here's an India Times report on allegations of Indian intelligence orchestrating attacks on Indian Parliament and Mumbai hotels:

NEW DELHI: In what is certain to escalate the already vicious fight between the CBI and the IB over the IshratJahan "fake encounter case", a former home ministry officer has alleged that a member of the CBI-SIT team had accused incumbent governments of "orchestrating" the terror attack on Parliament and the 26/11 carnage in Mumbai.

R V S Mani, who as home ministry under-secretary signed the affidavits submitted in court in the alleged encounter case, has said that Satish Verma, until recently a part of the CBI-SIT probe team, told him that both the terror attacks were set up "with the objective of strengthening the counter-terror legislation (sic)".

Mani has said that Verma "...narrated that the 13.12. 2001(attack on Parliament) was followed by Pota (Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act) and 26/11 2008 (terrorists' siege of Mumbai) was followed by amendment to the UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act)."

The official has alleged Verma levelled the damaging charge while debunking IB's inputs labelling the three killed with Ishrat in the June 2004 encounter as Lashkar terrorists.

Contacted by TOI, Verma refused to comment. "I don't know what the complaint is, made when and to whom. Nor am I interested in knowing. I cannot speak to the media on such matters. Ask the CBI," said the Gujarat cadre IPS officer who after being relieved from the SIT is working as principal of the Junagadh Police Training College.

Mani, currently posted as deputy land and development officer in the urban development ministry, has written to his seniors that he retorted to Verma's comments telling the IPS officer that he was articulating the views of Pakistani intelligence agency ISI.

According to him, the charge was levelled by Verma in Gandhinagar on June 22 while questioning Mani about the two home ministry affidavits in the alleged encounter case.

In his letter to the joint secretary in the urban development ministry, Mani has accused Verma of "coercing" him into signing a statement that is at odds with facts as he knew them. He said Verma wanted him to sign a statement saying that the home ministry's first affidavit in the Ishrat case was drafted by two IB officers. "Knowing fully well that this would tantamount to falsely indicting of (sic) my seniors at the extant time, I declined to sign any statement."

Giving the context in which Verma allegedly levelled the serious charge against the government, Mani said the IPS officer, while questioning him, had raised doubts about the genuineness of IB's counter-terror intelligence. He disputed the veracity of the input on the antecedents of the three killed in June 2004 on the outskirts of Ahmedabad with Ishrat in the alleged encounter which has since become a polarizing issue while fuelling Congress's fight with Gujarat CM Narendra Modi....

Claims by Swami Aseemanand, an accused in the Samjhauta Express and other blast cases, that the RSS leadership had "sanctioned" these terror acts have sparked off a controversy but the sangh parivar founthead has questioned the veracity of the interview.

Latching on to an "interview" of Aseemanand carried by a magazine, the Congress and other parties including BSP called it a "serious" issue and demanded that a proper probe should be ordered and action should be taken against the guilty.

The BJP and its ally Shiv Sena, however, dismissed the media report about Aseemanand's allegation against RSS as "baseless" and blamed it on the "dirty tricks" department for diverting attention from the real issues before elections.

RSS spokesman Ram Madhav described as "concocted" Aseemanand's purported interview with the "Caravan" magazine in which he made the claim that the RSS leadership had sanctioned the "Hindu terror conspiracy" that included the blasts in Samjhauta Express, Mecca Masjid and Ajmer Sheriff.

He said Aseemanand has clearly denied having said anything like this. "A lot of questions have been raised about the veracity of this interview. The veracity of the audio that has surfaced is also questionable."

Madhav said there seemed to be a motive behind bringing these things out now. Aseemanand had earlier too issued a statement before a magistrate that no such thing had ever happened, he said.

Dismissing the report, RSS ideologue M G Vaidya said Congress will not benefit by this "false propaganda".

"Since elections are round the corner many such things will crop up. Authenticity of the interview and whether Aseemanand has said these things or not have to be ascertained," he said.

Union Minister and Congress leader Rajiv Shukla said it was a "serious" matter and the Home Ministry should take cognisance and ascertain the truth.

His colleague Salman Khurshid said the truth should come out and a debate take place on the issue.

Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said "let's go into what he had said. If he has made some expose, it may be true."

BSP leader Mayawati said the allegation of RSS leadership's role in the blasts was a serious case and should not be taken lightly by the Centre.

"The case should be probed by CBI and if they are guilty strictest action should be taken," he said.

Echoing similar sentiments, LJP leader Ram Vilas Paswan said the case should be thoroughly investigated as in previous cases of blasts the name of RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal had cropped up.

Rejecting all the charges against the RSS leadership, BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters that they were "baseless" and his (Aseemanand) lawyer has denied this interview. "This is the work of dirty tricks department before elections," he said.

#Pakistan couple who lost 5 children in #Samjhauta Express blasts are DENIED visas to visit their graves in #India http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-3003009/I-dream-children-night-Pakistani-couple-lost-five-sons-daughters-Samjhauta-Express-blasts-DENIED-visas-visit-graves.html …

Rana Shaukat Ali and his wife Rukhsana have no tears. But their grief is palpable as they speak about their five children who died in the Samjhauta Express train blasts of 2007. After eight years they cannot visit their children’s graves in Delhi. A Pakistani citizen, Ali has a soft spot for India because Panipat in Haryana contains the graves of all five of his sons and daughters.

Ali, 55, feels that the loss of his five children ironically brought him closer to India due to his frequent trips to the country.“This year, we have got the visa but only for Noida. We reached here by bus on February 9. For over a month, we have been waiting for the Indian Government’s permission to let us visit the graves to offer prayers. "I dream about my children every night. They are asking me when will I come to meet them. I want to go to their graves as soon as possible,” said Rukhsana, as tears rolled down her cheeks. This year, the duo has got visas to visit India but are restricted to Noida because they provided the reference of their cousin, residing in Gautam Budh Nagar, at the time of filing the application.“We want to travel to Panipat to visit our children’s graves for ‘Quran Khawani’ (prayers at the graves of loved ones on their death anniversary). We have been going to Panipat for ‘Quran Khawani’ since 2008. "But since 2011, the Indian High Commission in Islamabad has not granted us permission for the visit,” said Ali who runs a general store back home.“We had applied for visas to visit Panipat but the Indian Government only granted permission to stay in Noida where we have sponsors,” he said. Ali had lost his 15-year-old daughter Ayesha in the blast along with his other children Bilal, 13, Meer Hamza, 11, Abdul Rehman, 6, and Aasma, 4.

The couple have been given a visa to stay in Noida till April 10 this year. Rukhsana said: “We have applied for a fresh visa to visit Panipat. We humbly request the Indian Government to allow us to visit the graves of our children and offer prayers. We will be grateful to the authorities.” The couple have a friend in India - Ashok Randhawa who is the convener of the South Asian Forum Against Terrorism. He works for the welfare of people affected by terrorism. Randhawa said: “I have written to the Ministry of External Affairs to provide the couple with visas to visit Panipat. I have given a written guarantee to the authorities that they will not harm the country.” Ali said: “I am still hopeful that the Indian authorities will grant me my request, else I will have to return without seeing my children’s graves.”

Touching on an issue that has for long agonized Muslims in India, Union minister for law and justice DV Sadananda Gowda on Tuesday said he is concerned about false terror charges slapped on Muslim youths that are followed by acquittals due to lack of evidence across the country. More importantly, he said legal reforms are in the pipeline to address such cases.Gowda, here for the 'Vikas Parv' celebrations to mark two years of the Narendra Modi-led NDA government at the centre, said, "Cases of arrest of Muslim youths on false terror charges are a matter of concern. We are thinking of bringing in changes. The law commission is working on a report in this matter to bring about reforms in criminal procedure, bail, prosecution lapses, etc. A Supreme Court judge is the chairperson of a panel preparing the report, and there are other legal experts who are helping in preparing this report, and it is being worked upon."

Gowda's remarks on the thorny subject have come barely a week after home minister Rajnath Singh told TOI that "the government has settled for a calibrated approach to terror investigations, advising police to adopt a more sophisticated approach, including de-radicalisation strategies, rather than necessarily prosecuting all suspects".Singh had then gone on to point out how the Delhi Police had recently released seven of the 10 suspects held for their alleged involvement in a Jaish-e-Mohammed terror plot. "You would have seen only three of the lot were arrested. We are working in a balanced manner. Earlier, all would be sent (to jail)," he had then said.Slapped with untenable terror charges, many Muslim men have lost the prime years of their lives as they languished in jail. After their release they have found it difficult to adjust to a world that has changed in the interim, graduating from buses to metros, banks to ATMs, landlines to smartphones.Recently, Nisaruddin Ahmad was acquitted in the Babri anniversary blast case after he spent 23 years in a Jaipur jail. There have been others too. Mohd Amir Khan was acquitted in 17 out of the 19 terrors charges he was fending off, but only after being incarcerated for 14 years. He had been charged with setting off 20 low-intensity bombs over 10 months during 1996-1997 in Delhi, Rohtak, Panipat and Ghaziabad. He told TOI on Tuesday: "The government has policies to rehabilitate surrendered terrorists, but nothing for those who are falsely charged."

In the past, six Muslim men accused of being trained operatives of Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islam (HUJI) were acquitted of the terror charges for lack of evidence by a special court in Lucknow. Five Muslim youths who were arrested in 2006 by the Mumbai police from different parts of the city on charges of terrorism were also acquitted this year. Gulzar Ahmad Bani, an alleged Hizbul Mujahideen operative who had been in jail from 2001 in a blast case in Agra, was set free for want of evidence by a local court.The problem runs deep. A film based on legal activist Shahid Azmi, who himself faced false charges and after his release fought to defend those accused wrongly in cases of terrorism, poignantly points that out. Mufti Abdul Qayyum, who had spent 11 years in jail and was later acquitted by the Supreme Court in the Akshardham attack case, wrote a book, 'Gyarah Saal Salakhon Ke Peeche', narrating the stories of trumped up terror charges.

Berating the NIA, the court said charges against Sadhvi Pragya under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act would stay."There are reasonable grounds to believe that accusations against Pragya are prima facie true. It is difficult to accept the (bail plea) merely on the ground that the NIA has given a clean chit to Sadhvi Pragya," the court said.The NIA had, in a new chargesheet last month, dropped charges against Sadhvi Pragya and five others citing lack of evidence against them.The court said today that the NIA, which took over the case in 2011, launched a "fresh investigation" instead of taking forward the Maharashtra Anti-Terror Squad's work on the case.Seven people were killed and 101 injured when two bombs fitted on a motorcycle exploded in Malegaon, around 270 km from Mumbai, on September 29, 2008.Sadhvi Pragya, Army Colonel Srikant Purohit and others were arrested and were charged with plotting the blasts as part of a pro-Hindu group, Abhinav Bharat.The Anti-Terror Squad said Sadhvi Pragya's motorcycle was used in the attack. It also alleged that Lt Col Purohit and Sadhvi Pragya had met Swami Aseemanand , the main accused in the Samjhauta Express blast of 2007, and plotted the Malegaon blasts. Many witnesses have since turned hostile.The NIA said in its charge-sheet that "during investigation, sufficient evidences have not been found" against Sadhvi Pragya. It also said the motorcycle registered in her name was used by an accused who is missing.Both the Sadhvi and Col Purohit, called the face of "saffron terror" by the Congress, have been in jail for about seven years now.The case was first investigated by Hemant Karkare as the chief of Maharashtra's Anti-terror Squad. Mr Karkare was killed battling the Lashkar e Taiba terrorists who attacked Mumbai on November 26, 2008.

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I am the Founder and President of PakAlumni Worldwide, a global social network for Pakistanis, South Asians and their friends. I also served as Chairman of the NEDians Convention 2007. In addition to being a South Asia watcher, an investor, business consultant and avid follower of the world financial markets, I have more than 25 years experience in the hi-tech industry. I have been on the faculties of Rutgers University and NED Engineering University and cofounded two high-tech startups, Cautella, Inc. and DynArray Corp and managed multi-million dollar P&Ls. I am a pioneer of the PC and mobile businesses and I have held senior management positions in hardware and software development of Intel’s microprocessor product line from 8086 to Pentium processors. My experience includes senior roles in marketing, engineering and business management. I was recognized as “Person of the Year” by PC Magazine for my contribution to 80386 program. I have an MS degree in Electrical engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
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